1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relate generally to a print control apparatus, a print control method, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some type of known image processing apparatus includes a clear toner which is colorless toner containing no colorant in addition to color toners of four colors of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K), for example. Visual and/or tactile effect (hereinafter, “surface effect”) can be produced by fixing a toner image formed with a clear toner onto transfer paper where an image is formed with the CMYK toners. The produced surface effect varies depending on what toner image is formed with the clear toner and how the clear-toner image is fixed. Some type of surface effect may simply give a gloss, while some surface effect may reduce gloss. Some type of surface effect is applied for surface protection. Some type of surface effect may be applied only to a part of a surface rather than to the entire surface. Some type of surface effect may be applied to add a texture or a watermark with clear toner. Surface effect can be produced not only by way of controlling fixing but also by causing a dedicated postprocessing device, such as a glosser or a low-temperature fixing device, to apply finishing. A technique for controlling deposition of clear toner using a gloss control plane is provided in recent years. An example of the technique is disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2012-083736.
Meanwhile, there is a limit on a total amount of developing material, such as ink or toner, which can be recorded (deposited) by an image processing apparatus on a recording member. There can be a case where an image is formed with toners of five or more colors consisting of the CMYK four colors and a special toner(s). In such a case, if a total amount of the toners is excessively large, a resultant printed image is typically undesirably degraded in image quality due to text “bleed” caused by scattered toner or unevenly fixed toner. There is a known scheme for limiting the total amount of developing materials to prevent the total amount from exceeding the limit. Hereinafter, this technique is referred to as “total amount control”.
Known examples of such a scheme include a total-amount control scheme (which is a combination of a specific total-amount limit value and an engine speed), which achieves high image quality by increasing an upper limit of total toner amount (total-amount limit value) by making use of fact that the lower engine speed, the larger the amount of toner which can be fixed to paper. Another known total-amount control scheme maintains productivity by reducing the total-toner-amount limit value rather than reducing the engine speed.
A printer disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2003-162199 is configured to switch an engine speed depending on an amount of toners to be used in printing print data to provide a certain level of print quality and achieve effective printing.
However, because such a conventional total amount control scheme does not take influence of total amount control on surface effect into account, total amount control can be a cause of failure in producing desired surface effect in some cases.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a print control apparatus, a print control method, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium capable of switching to an appropriate total-amount control mode while taking influence of total amount control on surface effect into account.